Best Kept Secrets
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: Sherlock Holmes was a peculiar woman in many ways: firstly, she was covered in tattoos and piercings. Secondly, she didn't exist five years ago.
1. Prologue

-2006-

Salander sat still and silent as the stack of file folders landed on the desk separating her and Mycroft Holmes. "Your new name is Sherlock Holmes," he announced without preamble. "You are my younger sister by seven years. We grew up in Sussex, and spent every summer holiday in France with our grandmother until her passing when you were fourteen. At the age of seventeen you were sexually assaulted by our uncle Roger, who at the time was supposed to be tutoring you on the violin - oh, you play the violin. You _promptly_ reported him and he spent the remainder of his short life in prison." He said the last with a pointed air, and a very obvious addition of '_there will be no more vigilante work for you, Miss Salander._'

"You were in a serious relationship with a young man named Victor Trevor until our parents died in a car crash. It was then you failed out of university in your final year, meant to be reading in chemistry. You have recently returned to Britain after several years working, studying, and - ah, what's the term? - _soul-searching_in Sweden."

She quirked an eyebrow. "I assure you, brother, my accent won't slip," she told him in clipped tones, perfectly imitating his. Everything about this arrangement was a bit too strongly reminiscent of Zalachenko.

"I have the utmost confidence in your acting, Sherlock," Mycroft smoothly insisted. "However, I am not the one in charge of writing your alibi. That task went to my employer, who spent a great deal of time arranging every last detail. An entire office, in fact, contributed, a branch of the government known for being unknown. Ah, speaking of."

A pretty young woman of around Salander's - Sherlock's - age came in and silently passed over a memo. Mycroft smiled at her: office affair with no signs of stopping simply because it was inappropriate, likely to end in marriage within a year. His pleasant demeanor darkened as he read the document, and he smirked. "Yes, Mummy, whatever you say, Mummy," he lightly said before taking up his pen for a proper reply.

"Don't want to upset Mummy, then, do you?" asked Sherlock.

That was the only time she saw him genuinely smile, and upsetting Mummy would become a long-running joke between them in the years to come.

First, however, was the matter of her new living arrangements. Mycroft wanted to put out a deposit on a spacious, luxurious flat on the West End, but Salander got the feeling that Sherlock was stubborn. With what little she was able to scrounge from her overseas bank account, to be closed indefinitely as soon as she turned her back, she acquired a small place on Montague Street. It reminded Sherlock of the little flat she'd lived in on Lundagatan during her visit in Sweden, small and cramped and more than a bit musty. There was enough room for her clothes - which Mycroft bought for her, all business casual. Vile. Though there was a certain sleekness to the well-cut silk - and for her to buy books, maybe even some equipment. Lately she had been enamored with chemistry.

Three months had gone by, all of the books in her flat mindlessly consumed, and Sherlock was bored. Though by no means did she care to have a nine-to-five job, she needed something to occupy her mind or she would go mad. Mycroft seemed more than happy to give her a position working in his office, which she refused with her utmost scorn. There was no way she would allow herself to be manipulated by yet another government machine.

Sherlock started wandering the streets at night in her fiercest get-up, spiking her hair into a ferocious 'do before dressing in her old torn jeans and grubby shirts under a faded leather jacket. It was the only time Sherlock and Salander ever intermixed, even if Sherlock did still like to radically style her hair over the crisp silk suits she was growing steadily more fond of. The more she wandered about, the littler more cataloguing she was able to add of her knowledge of London's streets. There seemed to be a plus-side to her defect, after all. A few people tried to mug her and one tried to assault her, but she was quick to deliver a burst of well-deserved violence. It wasn't vigilanteism if she was just defending herself, after all.

Still, one night she couldn't quite help herself intervening when she came across a young man being beaten by a few idiots in baggy jeans who fancied themselves hardened thugs. A few knocks over the head and a kick to the solar plexus with the sole of her boot and the scrawny young man was falling all over her with thanks. "You saved my life! I can't believe it, you're five feet tall and you saved my life! Thank you! I love you!" Then he tried to kiss her and she pinned him against the wall by the throat. "_Sorry! Sorry! I just love you so much!_"

His name was Raz, he was 22, and he was a very grateful drugs dealer. To show the full extent of his gratitude he gave her a tiny bag of white powder that Mimi had tried once a few years back. She took it home with her, Raz's many promises of favors and fair trade whirring around in her head, carelessly threw the bag onto a shelf, and promptly forgot about it. Sherlock didn't care about gratitude or having favors owed to her, though they could potentially come in handy someday.

Scotland Yard caught up with her after four months of night wanderings. Sherlock knew why they stopped her - a punk found standing alone with a bloody nose over the prone bodies of four gang members - and was surprised when the DI said he was impressed. "Not many women your size can do something like that," he told her once the ambulance had checked her nose wasn't broken and carted off the gang.

"Size has nothing to do with it." Sherlock turned on her heel and strode away before the graying DI could reply.

Sherlock continued her chemical experiments, but they lacked a certain spark that she was still trying to find in making her new life worthwhile. Not that it wasn't worthwhile, she was happy to be alive even if it was in an unfamiliar country, but she needed something more, a real purpose, or she would defect. It was only when she was on her way to St. Bart's morgue to ask about doing an experiment on one of the cadavers, and found her way blocked by a crime scene, did things get interesting. The same DI who'd been impressed by her size-to-strength ratio was there, and recognized her in the well-fitted charcoal suit. It was probably the hair.

"Nice to see you again, how's the nose?" he asked cheerfully. Sherlock blinked at him until his smile faded. "Well, anyway, I'd better get on, we've an investigation. I think you can get through on High Street. If you just take the left up there and then-"

"Why are you directing people to walk the same way the gang escaped?"

The DI's eyebrows shot up. "What? Hold on, don't move, I need to..." He dashed off and started quickly directing his constables and sergeants to cordon off the other street. Sherlock watched with interest until he was finished and returned, looking awed. "How did you know that?" he asked breathlessly.

So Sherlock explained. A part of her rather liked the way the DI looked at her so admirably, while another part was frustrated with his extreme levels of incompetency. He was absolutely thrilled by her so-called genius, and quickly ushered her further onto the crime scene. "Can you do that again? Can you do that with the body?"

She could, and she did. It was easy with a photographic memory to look around, find all the separate pieces, then rearrange and coordinate them in her mind to create the full picture. The DI was astounded and made her explain it twice more before moving his team on, but not until he'd gratefully wrenched her hand.

"My god, you're a bloody genius," he practically gushed, beaming and eyes shining. "I need your name. I need it or I might jump off a building."

She glared witheringly at the exaggeration. "Sherlock Holmes." At his insistence, she also gave him her number and snorted when he asked if she was secretly DI from another region. Then she continued on her way to the hospital as intended. It was easy to skirt around pesky staff when she flashed her new Detective Inspector's badge, and was quickly directed down to the morgue.

Molly Hooper was small, ineffectual, and madly in love from the moment she looked up from her paperwork to see Sherlock in the door. That, too, was probably the hair-suit combination, and Sherlock didn't have time for such silliness. Though perhaps the girl might be good in bed; she was very new to her job and insecure, looking for something to cling to and therefore very open to change if it made her feel like someone loved her back for once.

"I need to look at one of your bodies, for an experiment," she said without introducing herself, flashing the badge again.

The girl furrowed her brow. "I...don't think you're Inspector Lestrade. He's been here before, you see."

Hesitating only a moment, Sherlock changed tactics and smiled winningly. "You caught me!" she laughed. Molly looked apprehensively delighted at outsmarting her. Sherlock reached out and touched her arm. "Lestrade said it might be funny to try out on you, I'm sorry, I couldn't resist toying with such a pretty girl."

"O-oh!" blushed Molly. She grinned bashfully to herself, hugging her clipboard. "Well. Um. How can I-how can I help you? I'm Molly Hooper."

"Sherlock Holmes, and like I said, I'd really like to do some work on one of your cadavers," she explained again, shaking Molly's hand and holding on longer than necessary to make her blush again. "I'll keep to code and respect the body exactly to your prerequisites. You can even watch and assist me, if you'd like." She put a different tone to her voice that made it sound like allowing Molly to assist her was doing the girl a great favor.

Sure enough, the girl blinked confusedly and then nodded. "Um. Okay. Right through here, please," she said, pulling open the door to the morgue with a timid smile. Sherlock smiled to herself, and spent the next four hours testing dissolving rates of poison capsules in different parts of the body, while Molly brought her coffee.

The next week Lestrade called her for help in another murder. She supposed it would be interesting, following the summons only after a small amount of fuss to make it look like she didn't care so much. The body was that of a decapitated prostitute. Fairly young, in her mid-twenties, from Russia. There were finger-shaped bruises on her hips and shoulders, but that wasn't definitively related to how she'd died. Kneeling closer, wishing she had some sort of magnifying glass, Sherlock inspected her fingernails, the lacerations on her knees, elbows, and the teeth in her decapitated head.

She thought of the foreign prostitutes back in Sweden, the ones thrown in the river after Niedermann beat them to death, and almost brought up the topic before quickly dismissing it. The less she talked about Stockholm, the better her chances of remaining well-hidden here in London. Still...

"Someone smuggled her illegally into the country and killed her when she threatened to go public with her gross abuse," she said aloud. "It's very likely she's underage, and there's a reporter in trouble somewhere for writing this story. Either more prostitutes or the h-journalist be the next victim." Reaching irritably into her pocket, Sherlock pinched herself in punishment for almost saying 'journalist' with an accent. Damn Blomkvist was in her head.

The case with the prostitutes lasted well over a month, though thankfully did not end in her getting shot again. Four more prostitutes had died, but they saved the journalist and she was able to publish her story with the smuggler safely behind bars. When the case finished Sherlock went home without a word, ignoring Lestrade's invitation to a drink down at the local pub. Sergeant Donovan and the analyst Anderson had been giving her stink-eye all through the case because she didn't do things to code. They were idiots, anyway.

Raz's bag of cocaine was still sitting on the bookshelf, staring at her, as she lie on the sofa. Her mind felt scattered and full of useless junk. She missed Mimi. Without another thought, Sherlock got up and pulled the bag of white powder down from the shelf, quickly pouring a small measure onto the cluttered coffee table and cutting it with Lestrade's nicked badge. She only did one line rather than try it all at once. Lying back, she waited, and smiled.

Six months later, Mycroft and Lestrade were not so impressed with her new way of passing stagnant times when she staggered onto a crime scene with pupils blown wide. Anderson made a remark and she grabbed his collar, screamed in his face like a bat out of Hell, and nearly pulled out her Taser before the DI could peel her off of him. What began as only mild dislike became pure hatred that would never heal over. Sherlock didn't care until she saw Mycroft waiting at her flat when Lestrade took her home.

As soon as they were alone she lit a cigarette and dropped her accent. "You didn't invite your own sister to your wedding," she accused through the smoky haze, eyeing the ring on his right hand rather than left. For security reasons.

"I did invite you; you merely forgot to show up," replied Mycroft smoothly. "But that isn't why I'm here. Do you know why you bear a man's name rather than a woman's, Sherlock?"

She shrugged carelessly.

"You're named after my brother," he continued as though she were interested. "He died as a young boy, when my father's enemies broke into our home and shot him. You remind me of him, Sherlock: sharp, inquisitive, constantly seeking answers to questions everyone else is too passive to ask... It was my duty to protect Sherlock, as it is now my duty to protect you, and by doing your health such an injustice is to do me an injustice. To do my brother's memory an injustice."

"I didn't know your brother," she glared, lighting another cigarette.

Mycroft sat up straighter. "_And yet you still dishonor him_," he bellowed.

She leaned back, stamping out the cigarette on the arm of her chair. "Don't compare me to him," she said in a low voice. "Don't you dare compare me to a dead child. I am not a good person, you knew that from the moment we met, so don't try to make me one. I will continue to do as I see fit and you will not interfere."

"Mummy will have something to say about this, you know," Mycroft said after a long stretch of silence. "It would not do to upset Mummy."

"The only way Mummy would be upset is if you told Mummy. And you don't have to say a word; I have the situation perfectly under control."

Sighing irritably, Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose with eyes shut. "Yes, you've made that quite clear by the circles under your eyes that, for a change, are not due to the horrendous makeup you refuse to stop wearing," he sighed. "If you insist on continuing this disgusting habit, wasting not only your life but the government's money, I will have no choice but to inform Mummy and send you back to Stockholm."

Anger erupted in her chest. Standing, Sherlock opened the door and waited beside it until Mycroft rose to his feet. "Try not to get too fat now that you're married," she hissed before slamming the door in his face.

Another four months passed and Sherlock refused to give up the cocaine out of pure spite for her brother. However, when Lestrade stopped calling her to crime scenes and she was forbidden from the morgue, Sherlock concluded that even cocaine couldn't save her from dying of the unbearable stagnation.

She tried to quit on her own for a year, sickened by her own weakness when the cravings became too much and she succumbed again. Every few weeks Lestrade or Mycroft would come to check in and find her curled on the floor in a pool of her own vomit or, in one embarrassing incident, naked and sobbing in the bathtub because she couldn't stop shaking and sweating through her clothes. Lestrade, who was much less averse to bodily fluids than Mycroft, had merely sighed and carried her to bed after offering to take her to the hospital. Sprawled on her stomach in bed, she heard the DI gasp; it was the first time anyone outside of Sweden had seen all of her tattoos.

"Get th'fuck out," she muttered thickly as she pulled the sheets up and sweating instantly through them.

The men came later that night, taciturn and silent as they wrestled her screaming into a dressing gown and down into a waiting car. She was brought to a government medical facility and detoxed for five weeks, then put through ten weeks of hateful rehabilitation therapy. The nurses and therapists were awful, constantly asking prying questions about her past and wanting to know _how she felt_about all of it, especially the sexual assault by her "uncle" that had been in her medical records.

There was only one doctor who was decent enough to treat her with some sort of respect, a man named Mike Stamford who was temporarily filling in for a woman on maternity leave. He was friendly but not overbearing, and worked at Bart's hospital, where she liked to do her experiments. Sherlock liked him.

When finally she was released, Mycroft was waiting to bring her back to the flat on Montague Street. "You got fat, brother," she said in way of greeting.

"It's nice to see you too, Sherlock," sighed Mycroft.

It was cold outside, and Sherlock had lost a substantial amount of weight in the hospital; Mycroft offered out a long wool coat: a peace offering. She took it but didn't speak all the way back to her flat. "Happy birthday, Sherlock," he said before leaving her. It was January 6th, and Sherlock was twenty-eight. Salander would be so on April 30th, but that was irrelevant now.

Though the cravings and withdrawal was over with, Sherlock continued to keep hidden stashes of cocaine around the flat, just to show her brother that he couldn't control her. No one could control Sherlock Holmes.

-2010-

"It seems you've got yourself quite the reputation now, Sherlock," Mycroft said over tea in her grubby little flat. "Mummy has decided that you are to start charging for your services and your allowance will be reduced. The sooner you can stand on your own two feet, the better it is for all of us."

Sherlock rolled her eyes. "So glad you've my best interests at heart, brother," she muttered, picking at her chipped black nail varnish.

"You are to stop styling your hair in such a ridiculous fashion, wearing such garish makeup, and keep to wearing the clothes I've bought for you; you still don't look any better than a vagrant fresh out of rehab," continued her brother annoyingly.

"I have a high metabolism and can't gain weight," she growled.

He smiled. "Just wait until you have children and it will slow down."

She laughed meanly in his face.

When Mycroft was gone, Sherlock looked over her tiny flat with disdain; it was too small to work at the extent she wanted, too crowded to properly think. But to afford a bigger flat without Mummy's assistance, she was going to need a flatmate.

She called Mike.


	2. Chapter 1

From the moment he stepped into Bart's lab and set eyes on Sherlock Holmes for the first time, John Watson knew that his life would never be the same. She was by far the strangest, most contradictory woman he had ever seen before: short, unevenly-spiked black hair with reddish roots, gaunt, pale, with thick dark makeup around her eyes and piercings in her lip, nose, and eyebrow. The contradiction, however, was in the sleek lines of her well-fitted black suit. How a woman could dress so professionally and yet still look like a prehistoric bird was outstanding.

She looked up from a microscope with eerily light blue eyes that pierced him like a knife to the gut, briefly skittering over him before focusing back on her work. "Mike, can I borrow your phone?"

~~~

He really didn't know what he expected when he agreed to go look at a flat that would be shared with a punk, but it certainly wasn't 221B Baker Street. Homey, quaint, with tacky wallpaper and a painting of a skull on the wall - well, the real, human skull rather was expected - while menacing, defensive Sherlock Holmes stood in the middle of it all, straightening things and stabbing letters into the mantel. The landlady, too, was the opposite of what he expected: old and sweet, clucking about the extra bedroom upstairs and giggling when John became embarrassed. Sherlock looked about twenty despite being older, and he looked about forty-five despite being younger.

Sherlock almost seemed anxious as she showed John around the flat, fumbling with skinny fingers as she stacked boxes under the window. John noticed an unopened packet of cigarettes sitting on the sill, which she regarded every time she passed before quickly turning away, playing idly with one of her nose rings. She stared at John for a long moment before jerking slightly to attention and saying, "You can sit down." A strange look passed over her face as he nicked a Union Jack cushion from a nearby box, and used it to sit more comfortably in the old wing-backed armchair. This was a comfortable flat, and Sherlock was an interesting woman, especially when the Detective Inspector arrived.

~~~

Sherlock liked Mrs. Hudson. Really, she did. Ever since she'd made a wild run out of Sweden and landed in Florida - stumbling across the serial murders, finding the killer on a whim, being faced with this alarmingly kind old woman and unable to process what her kindness meant - Mrs. Hudson had been unusually fond of her. There, of course, had to be excuses made as to why Sherlock had a different name and accent ("I was undercover at the time and couldn't reveal myself even after your case was concluded," she said) but the woman trusted her regardless of those poor excuses.

There was an odd glint in her eyes when she looked at Sherlock, though, one that clearly said she was smarter than most gave her credit for, and she knew that there was more to Sherlock than one initially perceived. In that respect, Sherlock and Salander were no different; people gave up on them too easily, except for those who mattered like Mrs. Hudson and Palmgren. That was why Sherlock liked her so much. The old lady let her be who she was and still treated her like a person.

Meeting someone new, on the other hand, needing to be polite and orderly was a new and slightly overwhelming experience for Sherlock; she'd never lived with anyone as an adult before, not longer than the few weeks with Blomkvist in his cabin years ago. However, the moment John Watson had stepped into Bart's lab, she'd been fascinated by him. Openly contradictory, quietly broken, loudly awestruck...he was interesting. He reminded her of Blomkvist in a way, creased and rumpled in an oatmeal jumper, an air of general resignation to his sighs, but with an edge of lethality that Blomkvist had lacked and Sherlock wasn't even certain Watson knew was there.

So she cleaned, and tidied, because she didn't want him to leave just yet. Not until she'd learned everything about him, just as she'd done with any other thing that had fascinated her in the past. Astrophysics could be interesting, she mused as John's eyes burned into her back. The feeling was unnerving, but not unbearable, as it also had been with Blomkvist.

Lestrade showed up and relief flooded Sherlock; at last, something she could effortlessly do to impress John and possibly keep him for the long run. That, or terrify him away, but he seemed the hardy type of soldier who was accustomed to dangerous situations. The psychosomatic limp and tremors told her that much just as easily as her hair and piercings spoke volumes to those who observed her. She knew just what to say to draw him out, catch him like an unassuming fish on the end of her line, pulling hard enough to draw near but not so hard to pierce his flesh, and then he was following her. No one had ever followed her in an investigation before; she had always been forced to trail behind in the wake of another's stumbling "brilliance."

There was more than one occasion over Jennifer whatever-the-fuck's body when Sherlock would look up and meet John's eye. His admiration was unnecessary but not unwelcome, making her skin itch pleasantly as she sorted through the data and toyed with her nose ring. Anderson looked at her across the room and grimaced with plain disgust; she pulled on the ring to the point of making him blanch just for fun. If only he knew about her nipple piercing, but alas, that meant he would have to see her breasts, the absolute last thing she wanted.

"You're brilliant," said John, pulling Sherlock from her tangled thoughts. He looked astounded, completely unguarded, and made something unusual stir in Sherlock's gut.

"Do you know you say that out loud?"

He blushed. "Sorry, I'll shut up."

"No, no, it's...fine."

Lestrade was peering between them as though they'd just suggested stripping off their clothes and dancing the samba. What was it to him that John liked complimenting her and she liked being complimented? It was a nice change to being glared at by strangers all the time, that much was certain.

Perhaps that was why she slipped up so easily, Sherlock would muse later, once the case was closed and the cabbie six feet under. She'd been too lost in her own head, dizzy with John's appraisals and Angelo's assumptions and running through the city. It made her spin like drink in a bottle, like poison. After all, the cabbie had been very complimentary of her. He'd called her a proper genius, praised her superior mind, offered out a challenge that met her expectations, and then dropped to the floor in a bloody heap. Sherlock spun in place to find the source of the bullet, but was met with nothing more than a broken window.

She held the pill aloft. "Was I right? _Was I right?_" she demanded, accent slipping.

The cabbie chuckled wetly, droplets of blood coloring his lips dark red. "_He_ was."

"Who? Who was?" He was dying quickly, but there was still a chance. Sherlock stepped on his wounded shoulder and he screamed. "_Tell me his name!"_

_"Moriarty!"_

He slumped and was silent under Sherlock's scrutiny. She released a breath she hadn't known to be holding. Later, when Lestrade was interrogating her about who shot the man, it fell together only as the deductions were falling from her mouth. Her eyes rose and found John, surely enough, standing stolid and reliable after knowing her only a handful of hours, having just shot a man for her. Sherlock was uncertain if she was pleased or insulted, but set off to find out.

"How are you?" he asked the moment Sherlock approached.

Insulted, then.

"I can take care of myself, you know," she witheringly replied. John looked surprisingly apologetic and turned very red in the face as he shook his head. Despite whatever hurt feelings she'd harbored, they were diminished by the sight of him so frantic not to upset her. "However, I believe that I was on the verge of doing something very foolish, and I thank you, John. Are you alright?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"You have just killed a man." It was easier to turn the tables round on him rather than trying to brush away the scrutiny already on her.

A rueful smile crossed his face, and he shrugged. "Well, he wasn't a very nice man. I don't think I'll have any trouble sleeping tonight," he explained to Sherlock's delight. Such strong moral fiber was exhilarating in a new partner; to what lengths would he go to protect her next? Could it be tested, cultivated, but not stamped out? He was not a man to be exploited, after all, even if he was fiercely loyal.

"Still in the hair, I see, Sherlock," said a smug voice over her shoulder, and John stiffened. Sighing, Sherlock turned to find Mycroft only a few feet away. "I thought you would have grown out of that by now. Thirty-one years old and still vain enough to dye it?"

"It's not vanity, as you well know," she glared back.

Mycroft smiled. He was being contrary for appearance's sake. "As it remains, despite your shocking outward appearance, you've still managed to capture yet another serial killer. How public-spirited."

She arched an eyebrow.

"Has it ever occurred to you that we ought to be on the same side?"

"Oddly enough, _no._"

Well aware of John's staring between them, her brother merely continued to smile. "Really though, Sherlock, risking your life like this would at least be more conductive if we were working together. And you must consider how this reckless behavior upsets Mummy-"

"Wait, _what?_"

"_I_ upset Mummy? _I'm_ not the one who upset Mummy, Mycroft!"

"_Who_ is Mummy?" demanded John.

She shot him a derisive look. "Must I explain the concept of Mummy to you, John? This man is Mycroft Holmes. He calls himself my brother."

"So you really do worry about her constantly?" John asked Mycroft, making Sherlock's senses jump to attention.

Nodding, Mycroft somberly replied, "Yes, of course."

Sherlock took a step back, then turned on her heel and left, not bothering to wonder if John was following until his footsteps crunched behind her in the gravel. "Do you really hate him so much?" he asked curiously.

"I never said I hate him," she replied, appalled. "I resent him, I regard him with disdain, and loathe being in his presence, yes, but hate's rather excessive, isn't it?" He laughed and she smiled crookedly to herself. His laugh was a pleasant sort, full and exuberant, and she'd craved to hear more of it since they'd stood huddled in Baker Street's foyer fighting tears of mirth. It was the most she'd laughed in years, perhaps even in all her life, those sparse few minutes in the foyer. "There's a Chinese place on the end of Baker Street. Hungry?"

"Starving," he grinned.

"Good. You can always tell a decent place by the bottom half of the doorknob..."

John moved in the next morning.

~~~

In the whole world over, of all the people he had known and all the tales he'd been told, by the end of that night John Watson knew for certain that he had never met another woman like Sherlock Holmes. Achingly contradictory, in stature and strength, in outward appearance and behavior, in words and in actions, Sherlock was an enigma. Though far from conventionally beautiful, there was a hidden softness to her that visibly bloomed when she smiled in that odd, crooked way of hers, or when he coaxed a laugh out of her and she looked touchingly surprised. John instantly made it his mission to duplicate the sound as often as possible, until it was no longer such a shock for her to be happy.

Still, it didn't mean that living with the woman was easy. The first few weeks of their coexistence in Baker Street were a major adjustment for the pair of them. Sherlock had clearly never lived with anyone else before, as made obvious by her explosive scattering of belongings across the flat that couldn't be reined in, while John had to fight tooth and nail to keep himself from attacking the mess with vigor. The only things truly keeping him from going crazy were the few days where Sherlock went on a cleaning spree and tidied everything in sight, and the cases.

It seemed that Sherlock was a magnet for danger and death-threats, to little fuss from the woman herself. If anything she flounced right into it with wild abandon, smiling that crooked smile of hers whenever John jumped in to play interference with his gun. There was a near-animalistic delight shining in her eyes even when her facial expression was neutral, whether she'd just avoided being knifed or shot or strangled.

He tried asking about the piercings, once. "Any reason for them, if it's not too forward to ask?" he'd said politely.

Looking up, Sherlock stared for a moment before replying, "Yes. It _is_ too forward to ask," and locking herself in her room. Volatile moods, she had, but John had seen much worse in his sister. Later that evening she quietly explained that the piercings, the hair, the outward viciousness, were like armor to her; they protected her from a world that didn't understand, that was more than ready to take advantage of a wispy woman only five feet tall, by warning it off before anything began. Despite being stronger than she looked, it was still laughably easy to overpower Sherlock if she was taken unawares by more than two large people. Looking as menacing as possible was her first defense; there were many intended to follow.

Four weeks after he moved to Baker Street, John accidentally stepped in on Sherlock refreshing her hair dye in the bathroom. The smell of the dye was vile, her scowl in the mirror ornery, but John was too preoccupied with staring at the gaping holes in the back of her ratty t-shirt. "Do you have a tattoo?" he blurted.

"Yes. Now, either leave or put on some gloves and do the back," she snapped.

She looked surprised when John did, indeed, pull a pair of plastic gloves from his medical bag and reach for the dye bottle. "Harry used to bully me into helping with her hair," he explained ruefully, and a crooked smile tipped the corners of her mouth. His eyebrows rose when he caught sight of her roots. "Red?"

"Like a tomato. It's vile."

"I think it's pretty, at least what I can see of it."

The reflection of her eyes widened slightly, and if John had been looking directly he would have seen her cheeks flush barest pink.

It was made quite clear within those few weeks that Sherlock was devoted only to her work, and that John was merely an accessory to that work. Her strict policies against outside relationships were practically equal to that of a nun, only she believed in no higher power other than her superior mind. However, there were some moments after a scrap or tumble halfway across the city, when John would be patching her up, that she would look at him so openly or touch his hand, and neither of them would say a word. Sherlock was a very quiet woman when not on a case, but usually so soon after being beaten up she was a chattering mess, going on about how clever her deductions had been and how interesting the splatter patterns from her bloody nose on the tile floor were.

But on those special occasions, he would say something so insignificant he wouldn't even remember later, and Sherlock would just fade off and look up, eyes either piercing his or staring somewhere far off that he couldn't reach. He didn't like it when she did the latter; he never liked it when anyone went off somewhere he was unable to follow. It had happened to his men quite a lot, and to himself as well, when they came back to England after years at war. He kept a close eye on her those nights, when she tortured her violin, curled in the window, with only four nicotine patches on her arm that could be seen.

Meanwhile, his job prospects weren't getting any better. Not only was he an invalid (not from the leg anymore, mind, but for the nerve damage in his left arm) but any man seeing a therapist for PTSD didn't exactly have offers lined up to the street. No one wanted an episode in the middle of what was meant to be a calm and stable practice. He'd been able to use what was saved of his pension to pay the first month's rent, but hadn't realized how much trouble he was in until he had a row with a Chip-N-PIN machine over his useless card, and he had to take Sherlock's.

"Listen, just until I get a proper job, I was wondering if maybe I could..." he trailed off.

Sherlock looked sharply up, snapping her laptop shut. "I need to go to the bank. Shall we?"

And so they were off at the speed of a bullet, getting into a cab before John had a chance to register what was going on. Even when they stepped into the enormous skyscraper he was wondering what sort of pit-stop Sherlock had decided to take him on before the bank. It wasn't until they were planted in slightly uncomfortable chairs before a very smug looking man that John realized that they had reached her intended destination.

"So," said the man behind the desk, hands steepled before him as he grinned wolfishly. "Sherlock Holmes. We meet _again._"

There was an unpleasant tone in Wilkes' voice that made John frown and Sherlock darkly scowl. The pair of "old university mates" spoke to one another so stiffly that they may as well have never had a conversation in their lives. Obviously they-

"We all hated her, _obviously_," Wilkes said waspishly and Sherlock fell silent, staring down into her lap. It was the first time another's words had stopped Sherlock's tongue in his presence. John was grasped by the sudden wild urge to leap across the desk and throttle Seb Wilkes. It was a ridiculous urge, especially on the behest of someone he had only known six weeks, but damn it all if he was going to allow a bully to trample over his flatmate.

Sherlock, it seemed, was above such petty insults, almost alarmingly so. "Shall we get to business, or will you have me wait all afternoon? Not everyone has as much free time as yourself," she replied, sounding rather bored of it all.

With another ugly smirk Wilkes rose from his desk and they were off. Was their university one where no one stopped for longer than two minutes' rest?

John was on his feet again, chasing Sherlock over what felt like half the countryside even though they never left London. He didn't sleep for days, though he did get a job and a date with his boss, Sarah. "What do you mean, a date?" Sherlock had asked, appalled by the notion.

"It's a thing where two people who liked each other go out and have fun," retorted John, still ornery from the sleepless night before.

She shrugged with arms flung wide. "Isn't that what I just suggested?"

"Dear god, I hope not."

"_What_ was that?"

Clearing his throat, he quickly back-pedaled. "I just mean, I...I would hate for your work to suffer because of me," he amended.

Still looking viciously affronted, Sherlock pouted her pierced lower lip before a crestfallen expression passed over her face. Half an hour later she was timidly offering him two tickets to the circus coming through. "You might as well take _her_, then," she softly said before retreating to her bedroom.

John felt something curiously similar to his heart shattering and falling to the pit of his stomach as he watched Sherlock disappear into the shadows. Minutes later violin music floated out, sounding weepy and thick with grief. He wasn't sure how to feel as he read the paper with the music washing over him, but he had to continually shift in place as his mind wandered to how Sherlock must be feeling for such a plaintive sound.

Safely ensconced in the familiar walls of her bedroom, Sherlock sawed away at the violin, knowing how expertly she was wrenching John's emotions. She had taught herself to play during the year she tried putting off the cocaine on her own, as a distraction, figuring that if she would play well with trembling hands then she would play excellently when her hands were steady. It was only building up callouses on the ends of her fingers, playing sometimes until they bled, that made it difficult in the beginning.


End file.
